Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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The scene in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, was not typical. Dozens of Arab women, most of them from villages in northern Israel wearing traditional dress, packed into the Galil Hall for a discussion about Israel’s national anthem, “Hatikva,” (“The Hope”). They came alone, without their husbands, and participated frequently in the discussion. Many of the speakers, which included several Arab members of Knesset, said the lyrics of the anthem are alien to them. The verses in question, written by Naftali Herz Imbar, who immigrated to Palestin...
A new law being proposed by an Israeli parliamentarian would give preferential treatment in housing, employment and higher education to anyone who served in the army or did alternative national civilian service. The bill, which has been approved by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, has sparked controversy over whether it discriminates against groups such as Arab citizens of Israel and ultra-Orthodox Jews, neither of whom do military service. “This important bill gives those who serve the appreciation they deserve,” coalition cha...
A month ago, Rita Margulis and her fiancé Amit (as a career army officer he asked not to use his last name) got married at the Safari in Tel Aviv. There was a Reform rabbi and 450 guests. But according to the state of Israel, the wedding never happened. That is because Margulis, who immigrated to Israel from Ukraine at age 4, is not Jewish according to Jewish law, because her mother is not Jewish. Jewish law states that only someone born of a Jewish mother or who had an Orthodox Jewish conversion is Jewish. And since there is no civil...
RISHON LETZION, Israel—Strange things are happening at the Volcani Center in this Tel Aviv suburb. Potatoes sprayed with spearmint oil are not sprouting for months, Granny Smith apples deprived of oxygen stay fresh for more than a year and cows are eating less grain and producing more milk. These are just a few projects at the Agricultural Research Organization, the research arm of Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture that’s composed of six separate research institutes. “We don’t have a lot of la...
JERUSALEM—For a tiny country, Israel has a lot to offer: sacred sites, archaeology, beaches, mountains, food, wine—and even eco- and medical tourism. So officials are puzzled and concerned that the number of tourists visiting Israel has not grown much in recent years, topping out at 3.6 million per year. At a conference on tourism held in the capital, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said that in the near future he hopes to increase the number to 10 million tourists annually. But a lack of hotel rooms, Israeli bureaucracy and the ongoing vio...
As the siren began to wail, the children ran quietly down the steps of the Science and Technology Elementary School in Pisgat Zeev, a northern suburb of Jerusalem built on post-1967 land. They sat on the floor in the four classrooms in the basement, all outfitted as bomb shelters. The air quickly became stuffy in the windowless rooms. The teachers handed out crayons and pages to color, which most kids ignored. A few read books while others played cards. Some of the youngest students, sitting on the floor, looked scared. One little boy was...
JERUSALEM—The Israeli parliament, or Knesset, is quiet on Sundays. The plenum does not meet, and the carpeted hallways are silent. But at the end of one corridor, in Room 2021, there’s a lot of foot traffic in and out of Rabbi Dov Lipman’s office. Every 10 minutes, an aide escorts the next petitioner into the office. Most have never met Lipman. They have all made appointments through his office, and each is here with a different issue. “The government is planning to start imposing an 18 percent...
JERUSALEM—Women praying at Judaism’s holiest site, the Western Wall, need not fear police threats of arrest if seen wearing traditional ceremonial attire associated with the religion’s males following a Jerusalem District Court ruling handed down April 25. The order, which says women may pray with prayer shawls and phylacteries, is seen as a major victory for a group called Women of the Wall, which has been struggling for almost 25 years against police and Orthodox Jewish authorities in charge of the site, for the right to defy tradi...
For some, green is the color of money, but for others it’s the color of the environment. Those who favor the latter gathered in Jerusalem last week to experience everything from an “eco-cinema” (a solar-powered movie broadcast on the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City); to panel discussions; to environmentally-themed walking tours. An estimated 250 million people make pilgrimages each year according to Jerusalem deputy mayor, and conference organizer, Naomi Tsur. The conference hopes to highlight sustainable urban and economic development, eco-tou...
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu opened his most recent copy of Time magazine, with its list of the 100 most influential people in the world, to find that his name, which had been on the list for the past few years, was gone. Instead, the name of his new finance minister, Yair Lapid, appeared. Lapid, a political newbie who led his Yesh Atid [There is a Future] party to an impressive showing in the recent elections—19 out of 120 possible seats in the unicameral body—is keen to show that he has what it takes to be Israel’s next prime minis...
Id Khamis Jahalin sits in his sparsely furnished, illegally-built shack, and worries about his future. A father of seven, he was born in this community of tents and shacks about 10 miles east of Jerusalem. Sitting on a thin mattress that substitutes for a couch during the day and a bed at night, Id Khamis told The Media Line that a new Israeli plan to relocate the Jahalin Bedouin community, “is the worst one yet. It is not appropriate for us at all. The place they want to move us to is surrounded on all four sides and it is very crowded. I a...
It started around the time of his bar mitzvah at age 13, when Tomer Hen decided it was time to open his first business. “I wanted to be independent and not take money from my parents,” Hen told The Media Line. “I was too young to get a job so I started an online business. First, I started selling stuff from my room on Ebay; then I started buying Dead Sea products and Israeli army T-shirts. Soon it became larger than I expected and I was making $200 a month at 14-years old.” Today, at 19, Hen is a millionaire and owns three homes—one in Dallas,...
Ofer Prison, West Bank—The long strings of blue and white Israeli flags, set up for Israel’s upcoming Independence Day, flap incongruously against the background of barbed wire and tall gray watchtowers. Inside, some 710 Palestinian prisoners, including 100 minors, wait for their transfer to other prisons or for their release. Mohammed Jamal Al-Natshe, 55, a Hamas legislator from Hebron with a trim white beard, says that he was arrested most recently last month and placed under administrative detention, meaning that no charges have been fil...
Last week’s invasion of locusts from Egypt offered adventurous home cooks an opportunity to try something new for dinner last week—locusts, which most rabbis say are kosher, can be prepared many different ways. “You can sauté them like shrimp with garlic, baby cherry tomatoes, lemon and saffron,” Moshe Basson, owner and chef of the Eucalyptus restaurant in Jerusalem that specializes in Biblical foods, told The Media Line. “You can make them like french fries, or you can poach them like lobster, roll them in egg yolk, chickpea flour and spices...
TEL AVIV—Israel’s first large gas field, Tamar, is due to begin producing natural gas next April. It is an economic bonanza for the state, and a security nightmare for the navy, tasked with protecting the huge area, much of which is outside Israel’s territorial waters. “These fields have strategic significance and could be easily a target for our neighbors,” a senior naval official in charge of planning, told The Media Line in an exclusive briefing in his office in Tel Aviv. “Usually to protect an area, we just make a sterile zone around it....
